


There's nothing of the person left

by 1000lux



Category: Penny Dreadful (TV)
Genre: F/M, Graphic Depictions of Illness, Happy Ending, I wrote this ages ago and haven't really watched the following seasons, M/M, Season 1, Vampires, dr jekyll - Freeform, for all involved, not the one from the show, set at the beginning of Vanessa's possession
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-06
Updated: 2017-11-06
Packaged: 2019-01-30 10:43:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12652008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1000lux/pseuds/1000lux
Summary: Brona is dying and maybe now Vanessa is too. Ethan is torn up between two women he's trying to help but is starting to feel like he can't. Through all of it there's the constant, amused observer. Not malicious, just indifferent. Only he doesn't seem so indifferent anylonger these days. The only one who does see how Ethan's falling apart. Because he is watching.





	There's nothing of the person left

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own rights to either series or characters.
> 
> I wrote this story ages ago after watching the first season. After reading it again today, I decided to finally finish it and post it.
> 
> I know Dr Jekyll is a character in the following seasons, but since I wrote this before those came out I have no idea if he's compliant with the character from the show, so don't be surprised if it doesn't fit.

Ethan questions himself for a long time. How did this happen? Though, he was never shy to hook up with the occassional man in his time, there's one thing he isn't. A cheater. He loves Brona. And that she basically broke up with him that night is a weak excuse.

*

Mr. Chandler has been a very nice sample. A taste of things dark and forbidden. Dorian could taste it. The foreign, the curse, the darkness. He could taste it on the skin of this indeed memorable man. An outcome he hadn't quite expected. No, who is he kidding? Of course he had exactly known how that night would turn out. It had been a hunch, an impulse that had made him follow Mr. Chandler. A moment's decision to leave the theater to prowl the night with him. Maybe it was his connection to Ms. Croft or maybe the smell of blood and regret that seems to engulf him. For a moment he'd arrested his interest more than Ms. Ives. Now the moment had passed and Dorian could fondly remember it, like all the others.

*

Dorian answers the door himself, which is so out-of-character that it gives Ethan pause for a moment. He's wearing nothing but a crimson robe. Untied.

"Mr. Chandler," Dorian states somewhat satisfied, as if an assumption has just been confirmed. "Come on in, the party has already started.

Ethan catches himself again and states his business. So to speak.

"What have you done to her?!" He slams the door the second he's through it.

"To whom?" Dorian asks, leaning against the wall, arms crossed. And hell, even one foot resting on the other ankle.

"Ms. Ives!" Comes the accusatory answer.

"I did absolutely nothing to her. Nor would I." Now he doesn't look as content as before. Creases of irritation are marring his face.

"She saw you before it happened! She was fine and then she saw you!" Ethan's fist hits the wall beside Dorian's face.

Unfazed by it, Dorian is suddenly all business, while Ethan becomes aware of the rather sudden close proximity.

"What happened? I was told she is ill, what exactly is wrong with her?" A hand pushes Ethan away, lightly. "Let me come." Dorian shrugs out of his robe. "Let me help." He cranes his neck. "Stanley, I'm going out!"

Ethan watches as one of the butlers arrives with clothes.

"I don't want you there! You did enough!"

"Neither do you have an idea what I did, nor do I. So why don't we find out? In the best interest of Ms. Ives."

Ethan can't argue with that, especially when the other suddenly sounds a lot more collected and sensible than he does.

*

"Don't go too close. She might hurt you."

"Hardly."

"Ms. Ives." Dorian sits down at her beside, face stricken by what he sees. "Vanessa." A hand brushes through her hair.

Ethan stands beside him, watching closely, waiting for the other to give him a reason to find an outlet for his bottled up rage.

"Look at you two," Vanessa suddenly exclaims, eyes sparkling. "How adorable, the two little lovebirds." She glances up at Ethan. "Did you fuck him or did he fuck you?" She leans closer to Dorian now, as if for confidentiality. "I bet you fucked him!"

"As a matter of fact we took turns." Dorian points out.

*

The irresitable, beautiful boy of our dreams. If only it had been little more off the mark. But just as precisely as Ethan shoots to kill, so does Vanessa.

*

"Are you leaving?"

"No." Dorian states, looking a lot more dissheveled than when he arrived. "Why would I?"

And that's a surprise too. Ethan knows that Mr. Gray craves distraction and stimulation of almost any emotion he can get. But he pegged him for the type who disengages once things become ugly. Once there's actually something to lose.  
He hopes Dorian stays because of Vanessa and not morbid curiousity. But he wouldn't bet on it.

*

Neither goes home. They all stay at Sir Malcom's house. Sitting in dreadful silence, nursing drinks. In those precious moments before the screaming upstairs starts again.

*

"I have to leave," Ethan grabs jacket and hat.

"What, now?" A dissheveled and sweaty Dorian who, though still has not even traces of rings under his eyes, asks.

"I'll be back, later."

Dorian only gives him a tired nod. They're all tired. Neither of them really has the time to sleep or change. They're all not at their best anylonger. And Ethan thinks he's never seen Dorian so entirely unfurbished. Even though, out of all of them he still looks the best. Even his hair still has a certain shine, even though Ethan knows for a fact that he hasn't washed it these past days.

As Ethan closes the door and steps into the cold air of the street, he wonders if that's what Dorian looks like, he doesn't want to know what he looks like himself.

*

After maybe three more times, Dorian states not asks his assumption.

"Ms. Croft, I assume."

"You assume right," is Ethan's curt answer before he's off again.

*

"Come on." Dorian's hand comes to rest warm on Ethan's shoulder, ripping him from his near stupor in front of Vanessa's door, beside him still the bucket and cloth with which he'd wiped the sweat of her face.

"We need to stay." comes Ethan's answer.

"You, my friend, need a reprieve."

Ethan laughs harshly, "This is my fucking reprieve. That's all I came to England for."

"To fight demons and protect damsels in distress?" Dorian smiles.

"For reprieve."

"What a curious place to come to then," Dorian chuckles fondly. "There's nothing like that to be found in this city."

"Have you even looked?" Ethan asks with a weary smile.

"Touché," Dorian laughs. "What is it you need reprieve from then, Mr. Chandler? An arranged marriage? Taking over the family business? Gambling debts?"

"Life."

"Oh, there's indeed only one way to get reprieve from that. I can't say I've threaded that particular path at any point in my life. Quite the opposite."

"You think so? The way you're living you'll be dead before you reach thirty."

"I'll take your word on that."

"So, what's your idea of a good time?" Ethan asks.

"How about you sleep in a bed again, Mr. Chandler?"

"How about I sleep with you again?" Ethan is close, lips close, breath hot.

"Very well."

*

Ethan looks worse for wear with every time he returns from his mistress, or whatever Dorian is supposed to call her. Despite no one in this house looking exactly good, well, except for Dorian himself, of course.

"You've got blood on your collar, Mr. Chandler," Dorian points out.

*

They're sharing a bed again. In the few moments he takes away from either Brona or Vanessa, trying not to go insane, while seeing both women slip away from him.

"That lady of yours is very well able to die on her own," Dorian tells him coldly, yet sensibly. "Vanessa we actually still can help."

That fist that connects with Dorian's face actually swipes him off his feet, sending the smaller man flying across the room like a ragdoll. Ethan regrets it the second he did it. Careful. He has to be careful with humans. Fragile. Breakable. And all that fucking strength he can't seem to control on his best days. Dorian gets up again, trying to smooth back his disorderly hair.

"I see you agree, Mr. Chandler."

*

The next day Ethan stares at his face in astonishment and disbelief.

"You didn't even bruise!"

"Disappointed?" Dorian asks cheekily.

*

"Get the priest out of here!" Someone yells. Ethan tries to comply, as debris is flying all around them.

Suddenly, Vanessa grabs for Dorian's face. Hands gently carressing it, a rapt smile on her face. And then twists his neck. Dorian falls to the floor. Ethan just yells a final 'Out!' to the priest, before he rushes to the fallen comrade in this endeavor.

"Pay him no mind," Vanessa states allover satisfied.

"You killed him. Vanessa, you killed him!"

She only laughs, throwing the corpse a look as if sharing a joke just between the two of them.

"Oh God!" Ethan kneels beside Dorian. The head is sitting on the shoulders in an alltogether unnatural angle. There's no doubt about the fatality of it.

Suddenly a hand comes up, rubbing Dorian's temple as if against a headache.

"Sheesh." 

Ethan is still staring too much at the hand to see the mouth moving. 

"That's going to come as a little bit of a surprise." 

Another hand finds itself at the other side of the head. Then there's another twist and another crack. Dorian's eyes open. Ethan lets go of him as if burned. Dorian drops back to the floor, brazing his fall with his hands. Ethan stares at his neck, looking almost normal again, except for the purple bruising.

"Now, listen," Dorian starts.

"What the fuck are you?" 

There's much more annoyance there than fear. Dorian isn't sure whether that's good or bad.

"Dorian Gray." Because what else is he going to answer to that.

"What do you turn into?" Ethan clarifies.

"I'm afraid I'm staying myself, always."

*

"Are you scared of what I am, Mr. Chandler?"

"I'm scared by very few things," Ethan replies somewhat sadly.

"Disgusted then."

"What you are? No. What you do with it? Sure."

*

Then things move fast, when they'd all been waiting for so long. And Ethan uses a last Hail Mary, so to speak, in the final battle for Vanessa's soul.

"That was impressive." Dorian says after the exorcism administered by Ethan.

"I guess you don't believe in anything."

"I believe in evil. And I believe in pleasure. Both seems to be evidently proven to exist."

"Well, at least you believe in something then."

*

It is at a time when Vanessa is relatively fine again and Dorian has already gotten a taste of an experience he hadn't exactly missed out on, when Ethan comes to his house again. In the middle of one of Dorian's little soirees.  
Dorian is lounging on a chaise longue watching the coupling in front of him with as much disinterest as he receives the enthusiastic administration of several of his guests, when Ethan is led inside. Dorian's eyes light up like a lion having caught scent of his prey. 

Ethan watches, motionlessly standing in the midst of the room, as Dorian strolls towards him.

"Walk with me, Mr. Chandler." 

Ethan lets himself get led out of the room, passing countless floors with countless seemingly identical portraits. When Dorian kisses him, he doesn't exactly pull away but doesn't participate eagerly either.

Dorian pulls away, licking his lips. He laughs.

"Don't seem too eager, Mr. Chandler." He traces a lazy hand through Ethan's hair. 

Dorian bites his lip with a smile. Still that feline, content smile, when Ethan has no idea what exactly Dorian is so happy about.

"What have you come seeking for here?" Dorian leans in close again, eyes never leaving his.

"I've come for a more complicated answer than 'there's no hope'."

"I'm intrigued, continue."

"How did you do it?" Desperation, urgency and also anger break through again. He tugs on a strand of Dorian's hair. Then grabs his face, fingers bruising, as if to drive his point home. "How did you get all this?! What did you do?! What would I have to do? Why should I accept this?! When every piece of scum out there gets to live."

"Ouch." Dorian laughs.

"I didn't mean you," Ethan says darkly, guiltily. So, guiltily that Dorian almost believes he might be sorry.

"Yes, you did." Dorian brushes his apology away with a smile. "My road to this particular outcome was a rather unique one. And one I'm not sure I might be able to repeat. But I might just know the man to help you." It's a quick, spurr-of-the-moment decision. Dorian isn't sure what gave him the impulsive to make that offer. Curiousity? The wish to help Ethan? Anyway nothing might come off it anyway.

Ethan doesn't question why and how or if Dorian knows that he's talking about Brona. He just nods.

Only now, when he settles down, Dorian sees the fatigue creeping from every corner of his face. A face stricken with pain and worry and exhaustion. Dorian pushes him onto a couch.

"You shall sleep. And I will bring that lady to you. A dingy room above a bar is no place for a lady. Much less for someone dying."

"Are you trying to prove you're not a bad person?" Ethan asks suspiciously.

"God, no! That would be an utterly fruitless endeavour."

Ethan lets himself get lulled by Dorian's voice, settling down on the couch and feeling a short moment of surprise at Dorian putting a blanket over him.

*

"It has been a while, Ms. Croft," Dorian enters her sleeping quarters. Death is now clearly visible on her for everyone to see, not just Dorian.

"What do you-" A cough shakes her. "What do you do here?!"

"I'm here to pick you up. I'm thinking about a more convenient relocation."

"What- Where's Ethan?" Her gaze jerks around looking for the man in question. "Ethan!" She yells, panic in her voice.

"He's not here."

*

Brona is lying somewhere in this house dying and he's fucking Dorian Gray.

He hadn't really anticipated missing the man, who'd sometimes been the only thing keeping him upright, or making him lie down for that matter. But he'd become reliant on him, somehow started to trust him. That's the reason he came to him to fix this. Much more than his immortality. The feeling that Dorian would help him.

And now that he's here again, he just falls back into the old patterns. And he barely has it in himself to feel guilty anylonger. Because with every piece of herself that Brona coughs out with every day, Ethan feels more and more like he's dying himself. And Dorian of all people breaths a little bit of life back into him. Feels in all of this like the most sane and natural thing of all.

*

"You said you had someone who could help! But we've been here for two weeks now and nothing's happened!"

"That friend of mine, he's not well at the moment. But he will be. He always is. We just have to wait a few more days. Out of curiousity, why don't you just bite her?"

Ethan looks stunned for a second, stunned and somehow hurt. Then he continues with a rough voice. "It doesn't work that simple."

Dorian raises an eyebrow.

"Well, I'm sure you're the expert on this matter."

*

The house is large and old, standing in the middle of the city, wedged in between two smaller ones. The chandeliers throwing ominous patters across the marble floor of the hallway. But Ethan is a desperate man. Desperate enough to listen to an excentric genius, a madman, a charlatan, or whatever presents himself in this house.

"Meet Dr. Jekyll." Dorian introduces.

Dr. Jekyll isn't the world-wisened, distinguished middle-aged man one would expect for a doctor able to face such a challenge. He is no Van Hellsing. Whatever he expected, and that would have been the most flattering expectation, he certainly expected him to be older. But then, again, knowing Dorian, Ethan might have guessed that said Doctor would be young and hot.  
The slender, if not lithe, man, who doesn't seem to have reached even thirty, has light-blond hair that reaches over his shoulders, a face that is all clean lines and sharp angles with stunning blue eyes and a thin yet gracefully cut mouth. Or, maybe, Ethan thinks, maybe he's not young at all. Maybe he's just like Dorian.

"Mr. Chandler." The doctor reaches out a slim hand with a firm grip and smiles. "It's a pleasure."

"How did you make the aquaintance of Dr. Jekyll?" Ethan asks, turning to Dorian.

"Oh, we met over a mutual interest in hallucinatory drugs," Dr. Jekyll is quick to fill in. "I spend a great deal of time researching in that direction. In the field of psychology. And Mr. Gray, well, he likes to take them. Given his quite extraordinary condition, he's essentially the perfect guinea pig. Given that before we met I only ever got to test them on animals and usually myself."

*

"Have you considered Vampirism?" Dr. Jekyll asks.

"Are you insane?! She would be a monster! Forever controlled by a master!"

"Not necessarily. I have done quite a bit research on that matter and I think I could perform a controlled transformation. With the right medicamentation afterwards, Ms. Croft should be just fine. Well, except for the craving of blood and the commonly known vulnerability towards sunlight. And of course their could be a few slight altercations concerning complexion and hair color."

"Have you ever done this successfully?" Ethan asks, calling himself a mad man in his head for even still listening to this obvious nutjob. He shouldn't have come to Dorian in the first place. He should have gone to Viktor. Rely on what's sane and logical in medicine. Maybe he could have made her passing less painful. He can't have her end as a failed experiment inside some mad scientist's lab of atrocities.

"Well, on animals, sure. Would you like to see them? I have two very charming mice and a cat."

"Yes, I would." Ethan doesn't believe his own words. This is like some distorted form of reality, like on of those mirrors at the fairs.

 

Indeed he is shown two mice and a cat, covered entirely in snow-white fur with red eyes. That doesn't seem that alarming in it itself, until Ethan sees the cat lapping blood from a bowl.

"It's a bit of a hassle that they need human blood," Dr. Jekyll points out. "But well, I've grown fond of them."

"Whose blood do you give them?" Ethan asks horrified.

"My own, usually." Dr. Jekyll shrugs.

Ethan doesn't dare to ask what the answer for 'unusually' would be.

*

"I can't do that to her." Ethan says, as they are driving back to Dorian's house.

"Why not? It is a chance for her to live."

"You've seen vampires before! You know what they are like. There's nothing of the person left."

"Do we really know that? You define yourself as a monster, my dear, even though you clearly aren't. Maybe your definition of what's right and good is just really narrow."

*

It's not Ethan who comes to visit her. And maybe she thinks he will stay away now, finally, no longer withering away beside her. And she's both filled with relief and dread at the thought of spending her last days or hours, however long without him.  
What she doesn't know though, is why the man in front of her is here. 

Dorian sits down on her bed, wiping some of the blood off her mouth with one of his silken handkerchiefs. There's no pity in his eyes, for her condition, no disgust either. He's completely unbothered by her dwindling out life. And for a moment that makes her breath easier again.

"Mr. Chandler and I disagree," he begins to tell. "On a matter where I consider the decision should be ultimately your own."

"What?" her voice almost doesn't sound like her own anylonger, sandpaper on stone. And already the coughing cuts off her voice again.

"Do you want to live, Miss?" Dorian leans down to her.

Another series of coughs shakes her. He just wipes the spatters of blood off his face.

"Of course," she croaks then.

"What would you be willing to become to achieve that?"

"I'm a whore," she wheezes, "what kind of a stupid question is that?"

"Well spoken, Ms. Croft." Dorian meets her eyes, smiling.

*

It's over already, when Ethan arrives there. Had probably been too late already when he realised Brona wasn't in her room. Certainly too late, now that he's standing in the large laboratory that looks like something out of a nightmare.

"Oh God!" Ethan makes a half-turn, gaze averting the table with the marble-white body. "Is she dead?"

Dr. Jekyll cocks his head. "That's a rather philosophical question, given the attitude towards this species and your lady-friend's specific variation of said."

"Did it work?!" Ethan asks, unnerved.

"Yes, without major accidents."

*

She does wake up. Looking disturbingly enough so much more healthy than she did those past weeks, despite deadly pale skin and the white hair. She sits up and looks at him. Looks at him with those red eyes.

"Ethan?" There's something that makes those eyes look more human, vulnerability, confusion.

"Brona?" And Ethan lets himself hope for the first time in a long time.

"I'm hungry."

It is Dorian who walks up to her and bears his throat, while Ethan still sits frozen. "By all means, Ms. Croft." 

It's also Dorian who flings her away with disturbing strength, when she won't let go later.

It is her, though. There is no doubt about that. Ethan would know that latest, when she starts cursing like a sailor while getting back to her feet where Dorian flung her to.

"Well, did it fucking work then, or what?" She asks then, addressing Dorian, while she wraps a sheet around her still naked body.

"It certainly did." Dorian replies, smiling smugly.

*

It's the third day after Brona's transformation, that Dorian comes into the room, wraps a cloak around Brona's shoulders, turning to Ethan. "We should leave."

Ethan doesn't ask. Doesn't think too hard about the strange noises coming from the laboratory of their current host, doesn't think too hard about the furtive glances Dorian throws into that direction, while he ushers them to the door as quick as he can.

They're already in the hall, when suddenly Dr. Jekyll is standing in the room again.

"You are leaving already?" The voice is the same calm, dignified one, Ethan's gotten used to. But there's a strange glint in his eyes. A smile that seems to be uncontrolably tugging on his lips, unsure whether to go up or to the sides. "Why, you should stay," he continues. "We were having so much fun. I enjoy your company so much." All his words are perfectly civil and nice. But something about him... it's not an air of malevolence exactly. He doesn't look that much different. There's no foam around his mouth, not blood dripping from his fingernails. But there might as well be all of that. Because deep down Ethan feels scared. The animal inside him is putting up it's hackles. And what's even more disturbing is how quickly Dorian wants to have them out of there. Dorian who's only amused by every single grotesqueness and dark ugliness life has to offer.

Ethan utters a short, "We really have to go." And rushes after Dorian towards the door.

Outside one of Dorian's carriages is waiting, heavy curtains covering the windows. Still Brona screams on the few feet from the door into the carriage.

*

"What do you presume we feed her with? Do you want me to go into the streets to find people to slaughter for her?"

"Well, that would be business as usual for you, wouldn't it?" Dorian shrugs with a smile. "But don't worry, I can take care of the logistics of Ms. Croft's dinner proclivities."

"How do you even know so much about these things?" Ethan asks almost accusingly.

"I can't always fuck, feast or indulge in narcotics. At times I find myself engaging in such common past-times as reading. But don't tell anyone, or I might lose my air or mystery and fickleness."

*

"She can stay at my house." That's what he told Ethan.

Dorian doesn't pretend to himself that this was a sudden boost of selflessness instead of just what it is, a way to keep Ethan close by.

*

They do stay. Because they have nowhere else to go, both of them monsters now. Even though it is so easy to forget her cold skin and her ever hungry eyes when her laugh sounds through the halls careless as ever, sounding of spring and hope and all the things Ethan doesn't deserve.

They stay. An addition to Dorian's household, that no one talks about.

Sometimes Brona will walk among the guests of the party. And some mornings Dorian's servants will have to take a body out. Where they take them Ethan doesn't know and doesn't ask. Is only grateful that Dorian takes care of it. He's never angry with Brona because of it. Dorian. Maybe he doesn't care enough about these guests, who if only by name, call themselves his friends. But he does care about him and Brona on some level. Keeps them. Protects them. Let's them stick around in his world without demands. None at all. And when Dorian's skin under his hands had become as familiar to him as his own, while Brona was dying, they haven't once lain with each other since she's come back.

And Ethan can't deny he's attuned to the other man, sometimes wishes to touch him or just to know the thoughts under the yet again impenetrable mask of youth and beauty. But he doesn't, even though he can see the dark hunger in Dorian's eyes. So different from the one in Brona's. And he doesn't understand why Dorian still keeps him around, like a hearth fire, so he can at least warm his hands on him from a distance. Ethan would like to tell him that he doesn't need to. That he isn't as cold inside as Brona is on the outside. But he can't, because it would be saying too much, when he feels like he's been using Dorian all this time, and when every step he takes towards him is one too close to touching him. And he is irrevocably pledged to Brona, with his cursed body and still human soul. But his treacherous heart is no help for him anylonger as it seems to split in two, with two-fold affection that pulls him towards two sides, like the wolf and the man inside him do. With his undead bride and his immortal lover.

*

"He's lonely." Brona says.

"I know," Ethan replies.

*

Dorian throws them a look once in a while, sitting there with his book and his glass of wine, as they sit there, with Brona in Ethan's lap, both of them laughing and smiling at each other. Kissing, touching, just being happy. It is Brona who gets up after a while, walking over to him. She leans down, her hands resting, one on his shoulder one on his jaw, and presses a soft yet not fleeting kiss to his lips. And after another moment Ethan gets up as well. And he kneels down in front of Dorian's armchair. And when one hand cups the immortal man's face and their eyes meet he sees maybe some of that loneliness seeping away.


End file.
